DEMAREST – A proposal by the Northern Valley Regional High School Board of Education to implement random drug testing for students has caused outrage among parents, dozens of whom came to voice their opposition at a board meeting on Monday night.

The board has discussed the issue before, but a questionnaire on the issue that was distributed to parents recently brought the matter wider public attention. An outside vendor would administer the drug tests which, by law, may be administered only to students involved in sports or extracurricular activities, said Superintendent Christopher Nagy.

Parents said the proposed policy – which would allow the district to test students’ urine for illegal drugs — is that it violates their children’s privacy.

“Why am I not competent enough to deal with my own child’s problem?” one district mother asked to loud applause.

Other parents said they feared the test would detect medications their children take for medical or psychiatric reasons that they had no desire to disclose to the school.

Roughly 150 people showed up to the 7:30 p.m. meeting. Parents asked the board to address the topic first, but the board insisted on completing a long agenda before a discussion began on the drug program two hours later.

The aim of the program is to be an intervention rather than as a punitive measure, Nagy said, adding that students will not be punished the first time they test positive, and a positive result will not be noted on a student’s record. However, the student would be brought to drug counseling, he said.

If the testing program is approved, the idea would be to implement it in time for the opening of school in the fall of 2014. It was not immediately clear when the board would vote on the matter.

The issue has been on the table for several years, and Nagy said he has supported administering drug tests to students at random since he began his tenure in the district. Several board members who visited schools with random drug-testing programs have said the schools found them to be successful.

A mother, Cheryl Phillips, expressed her dismay at what she said was the board’s lack of transparency.

“In every other district where the program has been implemented, there’s been open dialogue. That has not happened here,” she said. “You have all decided we have a serious drug problem … and that’s the end of that. We feel unheard and dismissed. It’s a violation of the trust of the people who elected you.”

Bruce Rosen, an attorney representing five district families who are considering a lawsuit against the board, said his clients are enraged. “What I hear from you is anecdotal information, anecdotal problems, and anecdotal solutions,” he told the board. “You are rushing to come up with a policy without actual data.”

One parent, Mark Geerinck, an emergency medical technician from Old Tappan, said he supported the proposal, noting that he has seen six children who have overdosed on illegal drugs in the last six months compared to just one in the previous 14 years.

“That’s a big increase,” he said. “The educational programs aren’t working. The kids will get over the [humiliation of] the test. The parents aren’t getting over it.”